We were born with Fire and Gold in our eyes
by TheHarleyQueen
Summary: Riley believed that people were golden, and now she could show the world. She started a blog dedicated to showing the unique stories of everyone in New York City, and it quickly grew. People contacted her about wanting to buy her photos, to set them up in an Art Gallery. Riley always told them no. Galleries would be Maya's thing. Riley had to find something of her own.


**_Because I needed more mentions about what happened to the camera Shawn gave Riley. Also photographer Riley. The Riarkle was an accident, but I couldn't bear to remove it._**

 ** _Whipped cream & other Delights, _**

**_TheHarleyQueen_**

Maya said that people turned golden. Riley believed that Maya was wrong. People didn't turn golden, they were always golden. But you could only see the beauty of people in the certain, special moments, when the sun was at the right angle and something amazing was maybe it wasn't happening to you, but it was happening somewhere, and to someone, and then there was this second of insurmountable beauty and Riley had no way of describing how beautiful people could be, because she wasn't Maya, she couldn't draw or paint or sing. So Riley kept quiet about her beliefs, because she couldn't explain them, and no one would believe her anyway.

The Uncle Shawn came, and gave her his old camera, and suddenly Riley had a way of showing people what she felt, of showing everyone the golden tinge that remained with humanity, even after the sun went down and everyone turned silver instead. And so she carried that camera with her like there was no tomorrow. It was more likely for her presence to be announced in the subtle click of the lense of her camera than in the loud voice and happy footsteps that her previously accompanied her.

And then Farkle created her a space in the cloud where she could immortalise the photos she took, and she felt like she'd never stop. She had thousands of pictures- Maya painting, so lost in her own world she hadn't noticed Riley until it was too late, Lucas and Zay play fighting, smiles cracking their faces in two and muscles tensing, Smackle leaned over some or other book, squinting at the words and scribbling notes, Farkle in the frame of the bay window, all soft smiles and moonlight, her parents dancing in the kitchen while cooking together, Shawn and Maya's mother cuddled on their run-down couch in Maya's apartment, where the roof didn't leak anymore and the hole in the wall was patched up. Maya laughing in the sunset, Farkle blushing after she kissed him on the cheek. Smackle sipping a milkshake. Lucas. Auggie. Shawn. Yogi and Darby. Maya's mom at Topanga's. Zay, Smackle, Farkle, Maya. Her dad, teaching. Charlie Gardner, on a date with a girl that actually liked him back.

And then she started branching out, taking pictures of strangers with too much emotion to possibly hold in a picture. Riley tried anyway. Strangers on the sidewalk, smiling at each other. The girl with blue hair that walked into Topanga's each Thursday like clockwork. The blonde man with eyeliner performing Livin' on a Prayer at Central park. The muslim women in their hijabs, smiling and laughing at the café on 69th. The Indian man who worked at the Disney store in Times Square on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Everyone she came into contact with, everyone who had a story to tell.

Riley believed that people were golden, and now she could show the world. She started a blog dedicated to showing the unique stories of everyone in New York City, and it quickly grew. People contacted her about wanting to buy her photos, to set them up in an Art Gallery. Riley always told them no. Galleries would be Maya's thing. Riley had to find something of her own.

She started writing too, wrote pieces that accompanied each photo, told the person's story as they told it. She started talking to everyone she took pictures of, had this plethora of stories, lifetimes of knowledge and experiences of others in her own head. And that was when the magazines started contacting her with job offers. She was nineteen, just out of highschool and looking towards the world, when National Geographic called her. Told her that she was inspired, that they wanted her to tell the stories of people around the world.

Riley agreed, took on the job for three years, travelling the world and telling stories, experiencing everything and always writing home. Three letters- one to Maya, one to her parents, and one to Farkle. Always. But she started seeing that Shawn was right- photography was a lonely job. She missed having a real home to come back to each night, missed movie nights with Maya and Farkle, missed her friends and missed New York. She resigned on the condition that she do one last article.

And they sent her to the youngest CEO and inventor yet, the twenty-one year old heir to Minkus International, Farkle Minkus. That was the last time that Riley held her camera for a very long time. And when her plane landed, he was there with a cup of coffee and the stories of three years, smiling and laughing and talking about the charity work that he was doing. He was golden.

Riley fell in love.

They got married the next year, in mid-summer, so that the light would bounce off their eyelashes when they said their vows, so that everyone could see that they were golden. She started running the charity work of Minkus International, organising trips to schools funded by the company, to towns whose water systems were replaced by the Riley Minkus Foundation. And when she saw the young, vibrant faces of the children whose lives had completely flipped around, she started taking pictures again.

And one day, she saw a girl with the same potential Shawn had seen in her, the same life and message to spread. And she handed that girl the camera that Shawn had given her so long ago, and left her with one piece of advice.

"Never put it down."

 _ **I don't own Girl Meets World.**_


End file.
